“No, I can definitely see it in your face,” the human laughed, shaking his head. Adrissu rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest this time.
They spent the afternoon resting after their long journey, then strolling the major streets of the elven capital. Kian eyed all the different restaurants and food carts that he wanted to try during his visit. In the end, they had dinner back at the Magenta Marigold, which Adrissu thought was probably the best meal the city could offer—outside of the castle itself, of course.
Kian did not ask him to stay again, though he could tell from the way he looked at him that he very much wanted to. But it was just as well; much as Adrissu would have liked to stay, there was far too much to do back at home.
In the morning, Kian saw him off at the city gate, kissing him desperately for a long moment, before finally pushing him away, face nearly as red as his hair.
“Don’t forget about me while I’m gone,” he called, as Adrissu turned to go.
He smiled, all his teeth showing. “Never,” he said, shaking his head, and Kian’s smile softened.
“Hopefully, I’ll have a lot to show you when I get back,” he added.
“I expect you to,” Adrissu replied.
“I love you. Travel safely.”
“I will. I love you too. You know how to contact me.”
Kian beamed. “I do.”
Adrissu did not look back as they parted. If he did, and Kian was watching him go, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to continue resolutely on his way. Kian would be fine. He told himself this over and over as he walked, never once turning back.
When he arrived a few hours later in the woods, where they had landed the previous day, he did pause long enough to pull their scroll out of his own backpack and tell Kian that he left Castle Aefraya without incident and would take flight soon. But when he pulled it out, there was already a message—written in Kian’s neat, cramped script in the very upper-left corner of the parchment.
Miss me yet?
Adrissu laughed, staring down at the familiar scrawl, as fondness and worry welled up in his chest all at once. Kianwouldbe fine, but Adrissu already missed him terribly.
Yes, he wrote back, making his handwriting as small as he could manage while holding the parchment in one hand and a pen in the other.Arrived at forest without incident. Will check in when home.
There was no immediate reply, not that he expected one. He tucked the parchment away, transformed, and took flight.
When Adrissu arrived back in Polimnos, he kept a close eye on every piece of news coming out of Aefraya that he could track down, but word from even the quickest couriers was nearly a week behind. The news itself was often the same: tensions were high, but it resulted in no violence as yet.
Kian wrote to him once a day, but the messages were concise and largely the same:Today went well. No news. Love you.
Adrissu did his best to keep busy, as he always had when Ruan was away, when Braern was away. Not that it took much effort now: this year he had two particularly troublesome students, so he was often either dealing with the aftermath of their pranks and misbehavior, or actively trying to prevent them from furthering their chaos. Already, he had confiscated several magically empowered stink bombs from various students, which he knew, but could not prove, came from the two troublemakers. And once, a professor found herself within a silencing charm so effective that she hadn’t even been able to tell Adrissu what was going on until nearly an hour after the class—that she’d been attempting to teach—had ended. Between this and his usual duties, he did not have much time to spend ruminating on Aefraya’s tenuous political state or Kian’s absence.
He had hoped that he might get away for a weekend to visit Kian in Castle Aefraya during the month he was away, but in the end, he was too busy to make the trip there and back with any meaningful length of time spent together. Kian seemed unbothered when he replied to that message, but considering how short they had agreed to keep their missives, it was hard to tell.
Toward the end of the third week, though, Adrissu arrived home exhausted; but he could feel Vesper urging him up into his study the moment that he walked through the door, which usually meant she had noticed that Kian left him a message. So with a weary smile, he headed upstairs and found her curled up in his chair, their scroll open on his desk where he’d left it that morning. When he caught sight of it, the note was immediately, noticeably different. For a moment, his heart sank, until he drew near enough to read it.
I think I’ve figured it out. More soon.
Chapter Nine
“Explain.”
Kian laughed incredulously at the first word out of Adrissu’s mouth. His packed bags fell to the ground beside him as they embraced; he’d barely made it down the stairs of the Magenta Marigold when Adrissu spotted him from where he sat in the tavern, and was at his side in an instant.
“Really? A month apart, and all you care about is figuring out how I accomplished my groundbreaking research?” Kian teased, grinning up at him as he allowed Adrissu to take one of his bags.
“Of course, Mr. Farrow,” Adrissu said, letting his stern headmaster persona ooze through his voice. “You can’t expect to tell me something as cryptic as, ‘I’ve figured it out’, andnothave that be the first thing I ask about. I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around it for a week now.”
“Well, we’ll have plenty of time on the road for me to explain it inexcruciatingdetail,” Kian sighed, waving at the elf woman behind the counter as they walked. The elf waved back cheerily; if nothing else, Adrissu was glad that Kian had made acquaintances and hadn’t been lonely during the time they’d been apart. “Although I’d hoped our first moments back together would involve more kissing.”
Adrissu smirked down at him. “Oh, I’d be happy to oblige that as well. We’ll be out of the city soon enough.”
